"For instance," Urquhart explained in an interview to be published on CVG shortly, "it used to be fine to make an RPG that was just wandering around and hacking things up with the player having very little effect on the world around them. Why play that game now if you could just play a MMO?"

A couple of reasons could be that a single-player RPG is comparatively cheaper, doesn't have monthly fees, server maintenance schedules and griefers.

He believes it's key that developers of non-MMO RPGs look closely at what the genre offers over MMORPGs to ensure the RPG genre doesn't lose out to the increasingly popular massively multiplayer online world.

Hmm. Gameplay depth vs. money. It's going to be a tough decision over which developers should be focusing on.

I know Feargus has his heart in the right place but developers are more likely to have World of Warcraft as a case study than any good singleplayer CRPG.